


Tidal Volume

by simplecoffee



Category: Ocean's Eleven Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: Light Angst, M/M, Missing Scene, Movie: Ocean's Eleven, Nighttime, Pining, Trick or Treat: Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-02 11:47:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21161147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplecoffee/pseuds/simplecoffee
Summary: Business, pleasure and Danny. Even after six years, it's easy as breathing.





	Tidal Volume

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mols](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mols/gifts).

Danny's lips brush softly against his temple in the elevator, and Rusty almost laughs.

So this is how they're playing it, then. Falling back into each other's orbit, each other's rhythm, like New York never happened. Like that whirlwind romance with Tess never happened. Like they're still just partners who kiss from time to time, never bothering to name what they have because they figure they'll have it forever. Like they're twenty-three and twenty-one, with nothing but each other to call their own. Like they're thirty-three and thirty-one and on top of the goddamn world.

Danny picks up on his smile, slight and distant though it is, and answers it by leaning in to kiss the corner of his lips. Gently, like he means it, like he's wooing him or some shit, working that patented Danny charm that makes things easy, people easy, except the Danny charm involves sweet-talking and he's silent. Rusty doesn't need a soundtrack, never much cared for chatter. Quiet is Rusty's well-worn sweet spot, as is the soft, attentive hand in his hair he knows is coming next.

And so he whips around and pins Danny to the wall, grabs his wrists and kisses him hard in more ways than one till they hit the basement. Leaves him hard once they get there.

-

Danny's staying in a nice hotel. Of course Danny's staying in a nice hotel. His name for the night is Joel Billy, which Rusty makes fun of for the whole ten minutes it takes to make copies of the plans.

"Hey," he says, when Rusty subsides into quiet amusement. "D'you wanna - "

"Yeah." _Get dinner. Join me upstairs._ Yeah.

"What d'you - "

"Pizza," Rusty says, because he couldn't mail him any in prison, and spends their second elevator ride of the evening wondering if he should take his hand.

-

They eat together while poring over the plans again, just like old times. Danny tosses thoughts into the air like confetti, waiting for Rusty to shoot them down or call them good. Rusty listens, and does neither. Rusty will sleep on it, and wake up knowing.

Danny talks himself out, eventually. He always does.

Danny reaches for him in the silence. He always does.

Rusty doesn't leave him hanging this time. Doesn't bother to turn away, to pretend he's smiling at something else. He lets Danny pull all the Danny moves he wants to, lets himself grin when he can still tell which one follows which, kiss after closed-mouth kiss like wine and cheese, Astaire and Rogers, Gable and Leigh. Like it hasn't been six years since Danny last kissed him, then broke his heart.

He kisses him back, finally, when he figures he's let this quiet apology go on for long enough. Lets Danny sigh into his mouth, coax him over to the bed, leaving the smallest lamp alight to cast strange shadows on the wall.

"Get your shirt off," says Rusty lazily when they break the kiss, but Danny's holding his arm, working on the cuff of his sleeve instead. Gently, like he means it. Like he's wooing him, or some shit. Running his fingers over the surging, swirling network of lines on his hand, up his wrist, the sharp angles that somehow meet to form curves, the intricate detail that makes Rusty who he is, regardless of who he's working with. Regardless of who he loves.

The tattoo is three years old. Danny kisses it like it's new. Holds his hand with a kind of reverence Rusty's never seen before, eyes full of new depths he can't yet read, of old desires he knows and loves. Rusty's littered with new scars he wants Danny to touch like that; he's willing to bet Danny has some of his own. Willing to try to find them, to learn him again like they're twenty-three and twenty-one, with nothing but each other to call their own. Playing the game like they've got nothing to lose.

He breaks Danny's concentration - gently, like he means it - by pulling him close and kissing him till they forget they ever lost each other at all.


End file.
